


Viva Las Vegas

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Category: Doctor Who, Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Gen, Two losers meet in a bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29635635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: "Me? I'm the Doctor. Lovely to meet you, although I have to say, I wasn't expecting to find you here."
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Viva Las Vegas

**Author's Note:**

> I can't remember what challenge we wrote this for

He was all fucked up.

It was Hannibal's revenge -- not subtle, just an application of teeth to him, metaphorically, and the world didn't care. The world wasn't good or evil, it just was. And he... just got the short end of the stick. It was a hell of a good reason to drink a little more than usual.

So what if he was spending a lot of time a little more drunk than usual. It wasn't anyone's business, and it wasn't as if anybody was going to care. He'd just be going home to an empty apartment, because Molly was done with him. The divorce had been easy, if such a thing could be described that way. A handful of papers, Josh safely tucked away across most of the country with his grandparents.

Every ounce of him cried out against it, and if drinking could stop some of that, he'd drink himself stupid.

There were bars in the area that were used to him, and cut him off before he was too drunk even to walk home, and he preferred those to the thought of more scars, more damage, a car accident and a ditch or someone else dead. He had enough guilt in himself.

He didn't need to add any more to it.

This bar in particular was one of his favorites -- quiet, smoky, lots of other half drunken people. In one corner, there was a man in a cowboy hat who sat and smoked through two packs of cigarettes every Friday night. About halfway along the bar was a big guy with dreads he didn't recognize, and somewhere near the back sat a group of women who probably didn't realize that Will could hear every bit of their conversation.

The shame of it was that he didn't actually want to hear half of their conversations, never mind the family gossip and the most recent news on who was doing whom. Or not doing whom, as the case might've been. The barman lifted chin in relatively easy acknowledgement, and Will took up a seat at the bar.

"Bud Light." It was easier to ask for that. Most bars had it, and Will wasn't a fanatic about which beer he got. So long as it was beer, and it was wet, he was good with it.

The barman turned and pulled a bottle out of ice for him, twisting off the top before setting it on a napkin. Will handed him a five, and stuffed a tip in the jar when his change was returned.

He'd get a couple, and then go home and wonder what the hell he was going to do with his shitty life. Couldn't drink forever. Well, he could, but it wasn't viable. Jack was making sure he got paid -- got a hell of a lot of benefits, too. He should, after that fiasco, after all the work that had been done on his face. Plastic surgeons weren't cheap.

There was a sound somewhere at the edge of his hearing, water, something grinding, and he frowned. Will's mother was deaf, and he always worried about his own hearing going. It stopped, and so he took another long pull off of his beer and leaned back to watch the basketball game on the television braced to a wall shelf.

He didn't really care who was playing -- it was sport, and he could follow it, and it was distracting. The kid's footwork blew, which immediately made him decide one team was Notre Dame. Didn't matter if it was or not.

He'd never much liked Notre Dame. There was no good reason for it, it just was.

The side door came open unexpected, letting in a blast of hot air that cut through the air conditioning. It made Will glance up, just for a second. There was a man, just shutting the door behind him, wearing a full length trench coat that looked like something out of a detective novel.

It was a little too hot, even with the air-conditioning, for that kind of look -- full suit, too, and Will went tense, tracing him across the room because everything about the man was screaming strange.

The word _alien_ flitted through his mind, and he backed away from that thought, turning back to the television for a few seconds before he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned back to find himself eye to eye with him.

"Oh, hello. I know you! Gil. Gil Graham! No, wait... well, in any case, you! You're brilliant, you are." The stranger was beaming at him with a smile that was slightly scary somehow, and yet also oddly familiar. There was just something about him, thin, dark hair, dark eyes, and that hint of a spark in Will that knew when a thing was coming saw another figure imposed on him. It was the same, and yet different, and in a blink, it disappeared.

"Am I?" He took a swig off of his beer, looking at the guy just as sharply. British, that was always a start.

"Ohhh, yes. Yes, you've got a spark, you know things. You can find things, and your work in entomology! That's just amazing, don't you think? I think. I mean, after all. _Bugs_. That's dead useful, the kind of thing people will be using for years to come. And by years I mean decades, or, well, centuries even. And you'll expand on that, don't you think?" That much energy in one person ought to make Will tired.

Well, that was something to answer his question of what he should do. It was nice that the man didn't say a damn thing about serial killers. "I probably will. So, you know who I am -- who're you?"

"Me? I'm the Doctor. Lovely to meet you, although I have to say, I wasn't expecting to find you here." The Doctor shot him a grin that made Will smile back despite himself. He settled himself onto the bar stool beside him, and the bartender laid down a coaster in front of him. "Actually, I was chasing something else down altogether. You know, it's unusual, showing up here. Florida! Usually it's somewhere else. Cardiff, for example."

"It's the Keys. We get all sorts down here. What's shown up?" Other than a strange British guy in a trench coat, who knew who Will was.

"Weeeell, it's hard to say, really. I was passing by, got a little blip, decided to stop and see what it was. Funny, these little blips. You'd be amazed to know how often they cross my path. And what are you doing here, Gil Graham? Oh, right, sorry. Will." He took a beer from the bartender, and apparently he should have been paying more attention and flirting harder, because no money passed hands. "Sometimes I get a little ahead of myself."

"I think it's obvious that I'm getting drunk," Will drawled. "My life's crash-landed."

"Awww, well. I wouldn't say that, I mean, it's bound to pick up. A smart man like you, and...." Something beeped, and Will blinked at the sight of the object that came from somewhere in that trench coat. "Ah-ha! Allons-y!"

"Why are you saying 'let's go'?" Will took another sip of his beer, but he was losing interest in it because watching this fellow, this Doctor, was like watching a fascinating show.

The Doctor blinked at him, then grinned. "Oh, I quite like the sound of it. Shame you're Gil, and not Alonso. Well, but Alonso was fun, wasn't he? Yes. Now. Come on, don't you want to see what I'm after? Ohhh, it's getting away, that can't be good." With that invitation tossed out, he headed for the exit -- not the door through which he'd entered, but the one that led into the parking lot.

What the hell. Will stood up, and followed, leaving his beer on the bar counter. Worst case, he'd circle back and buy himself another beer later. It only took three jogging steps to catch up to the man. "So, just what are you after?"

'I don't know. That's the fun of it, isn't it?" He was speeding up, too, hurrying out the door and glancing around. "Wait, d'you see that? That over there, that funny sort of glow?"

Somehow, Will got the feeling that the Doctor was the sort of man who ran _towards_ explosions, not away from them. It was a little bit of a kindred spirit in a way, because Will had a tendency to do the same. "It's... purple?" Huh.

"Purple, exactly. I mean, that is in no way normal, and... huh. These readings, they're... but that's impossible. Noo!" There was something about the look on his face that made Will curious. "Purple's only set off by... well, all right, a great many things, but in this frequency, it can only mean one thing. Vimligs! Vimligs!? What are they doing in this quadrant of the solar system? They hadn't ought to be here, not at all."

The guy was one good sneeze away from losing his tin foil hat, from the sound of it, but Will was going to play along. "What's a Vimling?" And they needed to go see what exactly the purple glow was, if for curiosity if nothing else.

"They're from the Kleptune Nebula, this gorgeous creature. Made entirely of crystal, can you believe that? But... they hadn't ought to be here, and if they are, then...."

The sound of footfalls made both of them look up, and the hair on the back of Will's neck stood on end at the sight.

It was a person -- or at least, it looked enough like a person to pass as one, except there was a sense of something horrifically wrong about the man as he approached them. His face was too perfect, like something out of a movie. It was exactly symmetrical, and that creeped Will out to no end.

"Gil." The Doctor spoke very softly. "Believe me when I give you this advice." He paused. "RUUUNN!!"

And then he was gone, and Will wasn't going to hesitate, because that was wrong, that was so so very wrong, no one looked like that in the world, not ever. Humans were flawed and marred and normal, not...

Well, it was easy to chase after the man in the trench coat, given the circumstances.

They made it around the edge of the bar, and through the hedges, the thing still after them. Its footsteps were strange, and heavy, and altogether too fast for Will's comfort. Somewhere along the way, it gained a companion, and the only thing he understood from the sounds behind him was his name.

"This way!" The Doctor zigged, and then zagged, and somehow missed the small creek that ran through the wooded area between the bar and a local neighborhood. Maybe they'd get lucky and those... things would fall in and get eaten, but Will already knew his luck was shit.

 _This Way_ appeared to be in the direction of a crazy blue box that said Police near the top, like something out of an equally insane British television show. He threw open the door and held it for Will, beckoning him inside.

He wasn't going to say no -- not when he was sure that not-human was chasing them, so Will threw himself forward into it, and hoped he didn't break anything when his shoulder hit the other side.

It never did.

He stumbled, nearly landed face down on a metallic floor, and when he looked around, it was obvious that the Vimligs -- whatever they might be -- weren't the only strange thing around Marathon, Florida, today.

What. The. Fuck.

"Ohhh, sorry. I ought to have mentioned it's, ah. Bigger on the inside." There was a firm thudding at the door, but that didn't seem to bother the Doctor. "Now, then! To work! What might the Vimligs be after? I mean, there's nothing that could possibly induce them to Earth, at least, not that I can think of, except... No, no, not that, either. If it was the search for a perfect diamond, I can't imagine they'd be in the southern United States, after all... Well." He looked at Will. "One of them was calling your name. I can't imagine why. Not that you aren't a genius, I mean, you are, obviously, and that's saying something, particularly if I'm the one saying it. But really? Vimligs? Looking for Gil Graham? But why?"

"Will Graham. I think maybe you and them have me confused with someone else." Will stood up, warily, shaking out his arm.

The Doctor was shaking his head, though. "I know exactly who you are. The thing is, I expect you might not. Not yet. Not exactly, but you're going to learn. Soon, I believe." He paused and looked at Will thoughtfully. "When you're through here, I think. Marathon, it's a nice place, but it isn't what you need. No, what you need is somewhere bigger, brighter, somewhere you can work with your insects and.... OHHHH!" It was like seeing a light bulb go off over his head. "I am so thick! Of course that's it!"

Of course, and whatever he'd figured out, he was working with a machine, doing something Will couldn't figure out, not quite.

"It's the bugs! Vimlig systems, they're _crystal_ , living crystal, if you can imagine that. And what makes them work, the important bits, are microscopic bugs. Tiny, ridiculous little things that run through like electrical currents. That has to be the reason they're wanting you!"

"Because I study insects," Will repeated. "Because I study insects, the aliens want me? That's...." Enough to inspire a man to move out of town, that was for sure.

"No! No, you don't just study insects. I said, you're brilliant. Your work, it's the base upon which all other entomological texts will be based. It's what led the Vimlig to use the bugs at all, and...." The pounding on the door intensified.

Aliens used insects in their systems because of his work on insects? It was hard not to feel a little stunned, a little dizzied by that, as he looked towards the door that was being hammered. And hammered. Shit. "What now?"

"Weeeeell." That wry smile said more than anything that Will wouldn't like what was coming next. "You could stick around, we could see if we could work something out with them, or... I have to say, I think it's probably best if I take you out of the equation altogether. Perhaps not as much fun, but...."

But. It was written on his face, and Will was reading him, knew what it meant. "Probably for the best. In light of the fact that whatever I haven't done leads to whatever is happening?" Time. The man was moving through time, and that had to be why he was calling him Gil.

Will Graham. Gil Graham.

Maybe even his mother's name. Maybe Grissom.

"I'm afraid it's so. Tell you what, though! I'll take you somewhere fun, how's that? Not Cardiff. Dear God, not Cardiff, I wouldn't drop you in the lap of another Jack, it would be too cruel. How about somewhere bright and sparkly? Let's see...." He was pulling levers, pushing buttons, doing something bizarre with a dial. "Here we go! I know just the place!"

He didn't expect the thing to lurch like it was an old chevy that had trouble getting out of gears, but it did -- it rattled and it jerked, and he wondered where they were going, if they really *were* going somewhere -- except then it stopped, quiet and dull, like the engine had settled again. He headed for the door, just to see if madness really was contageous.

"There we are. Viva Las Vegas!"

Vegas.

That was different, bright, lit up, tacky. Everything that Hannibal would avoid at all costs.

Maybe...

Maybe it was time for a change.


End file.
